After spending the morning strolling through the shopping mall, Ethan Caldwell took Julian Sterling out for a al, and then the two of them headed straight to the Caldwell Empire. Even though Nadine Locke had been transferred away on a business trip, Julian Sterling and Ethan Caldwell still could not confirm whether there was anyone else belonging to Gabriel Cole within the Caldwell Empire. Therefore, Julian Sterling was extrely cautious. After using the exclusive elevator to go straight up to Ethan Caldwell’s office, Julian shooed Ethan away to attend his eting while Julian simply buried himself in the room.
Without soone who knew how to use scents to attack others, Julian Sterling suddenly felt that the air in the room was significantly fresher. It was not like the previous ti, when he had felt suffocated the mont he stepped inside. Just as Julian Sterling was leisurely setting up his laptop and tablet on Ethan Caldwell’s desk, Julian’s phone began to ring incessantly.
At first, it was the sound of endless ssage notifications, flashing continuously on the lock screen. Julian Sterling was just about to pick up the phone to check who was looking for him so urgently during this lunch break, when he saw an incoming call. The caller was Lucas Hill. He conveniently answered the call, tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear. With one hand holding the device and the other continuing to organize the unfinished drawing file on his tablet, his tone was incredibly relaxed: "What is the matter? I saw you sending ssages continuously just now, making the phone vibrate vigorously on the table. I did not even have ti to check them before you called."
"Have you checked the forum yet?" Lucas Hill’s voice ca from the other end of the line, sounding sowhat tense and urgent, completely different from Lucas’s usual playful deanor.
"Hmm? Which university’s forum?" Julian Sterling paused his hand movents for a beat. Back when he was still at X University, he was often dragged by Lucas Hill into reading random posts on the university forum, filled with all sorts of chaotic information ranging from romantic affairs to personal conflicts. This ti, having transferred to St. Lawrence University, he was busy with many things, so he no longer browsed the forums with Lucas Hill. However, after bumping into Vince Sutton at school the other day, Julian Sterling also intended to browse the St. Lawrence University forum in his free ti to see how the current situation was. Mainly, he wanted to see what kind of version his and Aaron Sterling’s story had been spread into by those idle students.
"It is the national joint forum." Lucas Hill’s voice transmitted from the other end, his breathing quite rapid, proving that Lucas was extrely anxious: "You probably do not know, but the matter is blowing up very fast. Let send the link directly to your ssages right now."
Julian Sterling gave a hum of agreent, casually logging into his ssaging account on his computer, and then clicked on the link that Lucas Hill had just sent over. This forum... how should one put it, it could be considered a form of miniature social network that had been developing strongly recently. Its system had both a mobile application and a desktop website. With a modern interface, it was quite favored by the youth, especially university students. And the post Lucas Hill had just sent him was not an ordinary post. It was an extrely trending thread, pinned right on the hopage. The number of likes had surpassed tens of thousands in just a short amount of ti, the number of comnts was even multiplied, and furthermore, every ti one reloaded to refresh the page, those numbers would skyrocket continuously.
"Is it so new trend? Or is it another drama of so celebrity getting exposed?" Julian Sterling still maintained a calm deanor, asking the person on the other end of the phone line while casually scrolling his mouse to skim through this post a little to see the title.
"Read the content of the post carefully first." Lucas Hill on the other side paused for a mont. The clacking sound of typing echoed, perhaps to leave a quiet space for Julian Sterling to read the post, then Lucas lowered his voice to ask, carrying a sense of wariness: "The incident last ti that you told about... is it this matter? Exactly how bad did everything get, why did you not tell the details?"
By this ti, the faint smile on Julian Sterling’s lips had disappeared, and his complexion visibly darkened. His cold gaze swept over every single line of text on the screen.
This was a post published by a completely anonymous account, and its main content was aid straight at the incident where he had been kidnapped recently. But the thing that the writer of this post emphasized and deliberately focused on was not the core issue of Julian Sterling being kidnapped for ransom or the danger to his life.
Instead, it was clickbaiting and distorting the condition he was in when he was rescued. Julian Sterling furrowed his brows, reflecting on that mont himself. When being held captive, due to external influences, his mind had not been very clear. He was tired and exhausted, but Julian Sterling dared to be one hundred percent certain that he himself would never fall into such a miserable and ridiculous state as the post was deliberately describing.
Broadly speaking, the post fabricated that he himself had been stripped clean, randomly exposing his flesh in front of many other people, and was even humiliated by the kidnappers, then subsequently fild and photographed by the crowd.
The poster even firmly asserted that rumor had it there was a secretly recorded video clip of that scene which had been uploaded onto so dark hidden websites on the internet. Although nothing overly outrageous that crossed the line was done in the clip, the sensitive skin exposed was not a small amount, completely enough to ruin a person’s reputation.
At the very beginning when reading these slanderous lines of text, Julian Sterling still felt his hot blood rushing to his brain, becoming incredibly furious. But as his eyes read deeper into the structure of the post, recognizing the choice of words carrying a clear intention of directing public opinion, he gradually cald down.
Finally, Julian Sterling leaned his back against Ethan Caldwell’s leather chair, giving a sneer full of sarcasm, and answered Lucas Hill with a tone that lacked a single trace of panic: "It is indeed about this kidnapping incident. But the truth is absolutely not as terrible as what that trashy post published. At that ti, right from the very first second, I realized sothing was about to happen, so I had promptly contacted Ethan Caldwell’s people. Ethan brought his n over very quickly, controlling the scene imdiately. As for , I only suffered a few minor scratch wounds on my wrists due to friction when trying to untie the binding ropes. It was absolutely not to the unkempt extent as they described... How should I put it, listening to the way that person wrote the post, it makes it seem as though I did not even have a single piece of cloth left covering my body at that ti. Truly ridiculous."
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